The “Horizon 2020 Workshop - Opportunities for EU-LAC collaboration in health research and innovation” was held on June 19 at the Sergio Arouca National School of Public Health (ENSP/FIOCRUZ). The purpose of the event was to discuss the opportunities offered by the European program for research funding, Horizon 2020, and provide practical information for participating in the program.

Horizon 2020 is the largest EU Research and Innovation program, with nearly 80 billion Euros in funding available for seven years (2014 to 2020). In addition to the private investment it will attract, the program promises new breakthroughs, discoveries, and results, moving ideas from the laboratory to the market. “Horizon 2020 is a financing instrument of the European Union, and our participation in this workshop helps us understand the project funding rules. This will help us provide better support for the research coordinators who already receive funding or are submitting their projects to the European Union,” highlights Fernanda Sousa, the project analyst that took part in the event.

Supervisor Eliana Cavalcante, project analysts Ana Carolina Gomes and Rafaela Delduque, and intern Lucas Amaral also represented FIOTEC at the event. “The purpose is to align requirements for classification, follow-up, rules, and calls for projects, in addition to collaboration with FIOCRUZ, our partner in these projects, which are somewhat more complex than usual and have specific rules,” says Eliana.

Eliana Cavalcante, Rafaela Delduque, and Lucas Amaral in the Workshop Horizon 2020.

According to Rafaela, the workshop provided comprehensive information for FIOCRUZ to participate in programs for financing research and innovation through Horizon 2020. “As a support foundation, FIOTEC is now aware of how the program functions for submitting new projects and assisting in future proposals for the strategic period of 2018-2020,” she emphasizes.

Ana Carolina explains that such meetings help obtain more in-depth information on the financial institution’s operational procedures. “It’s the place to clear up doubts on details and procedures that are sometimes not described clearly in the contracts and manuals,” she comments.

The Horizon 2020 Workshop was promoted by EU-LAC, a project supported by FIOTEC that aims to establish detailed guidelines for orienting policy decisions and other interested parties in future actions to support cooperative health research between European (EU) and Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) countries.